willing to pay for what I think might be called a letter query

Ok I'm 68 years old and am wanting to play a game with my grandkids. I always use the ESV and am wondering if there's some kind of program out there where I could type in the following:

"Show me all the verses in the Bible with 45 letters... 38 letters... 56 letters... etc."

Is there any kind of software out there that can do this for me (in ESV)? And if not, does anyone know the proper terminology I should be using in order to pay someone to create it for me? Thanks.

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GaoLu

I presume you would want letters and not to include spaces? I have the Bible in database format which makes such queries easy. I am not looking for the job, but suggesting this is easy to do.

Not sure how to do it in Logos. maybe someone knows.

Karl Sarpalius

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1077532#Comment_1077532

No, spaces would be ok. In fact, I don't even have to have the actual verses. I can go look those up but if they were already in a list that would be fine two. But the spaces are fine as long as the 'count' doesn't include them in the formatting. (The same would be true with commas, apostrophes, and periods. I just want to know how many letters.

The fact that you know how to do this would at least help me know how to phrase this question online so as to find the right person to do it. I began trying to phrase it and got nothing but programmers who want to create a website for me. Nada.

Again, I'd be more than happy to pay you or whomever in the Logos community as I'd love to support someone in the faith.

Can you perhaps help me wordsmith the phraseology so I can ask the www for someone to do it?

Fred Chapman

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1077535#Comment_1077535

I know of no way in Logos to construct a search like that. That said, I have to ask why you would want to do a search like that. What would be the value of it?

Doc B

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1077538#Comment_1077538

What would be the value of it?

He already explained that. He wants to play a game with the grandkids.

Doc B

Is there any kind of software out there that can do this for me (in ESV)?

Not sure how exhaustive you are wanting, but MS Word will give you character counts if you copy and paste verses into Word. Beyond that, some kind of database (as already mentioned).

A lark, but have you tried googling it? Someone may have what you need posted on the web.

Karl Sarpalius

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1077544#Comment_1077544

I realize there's work involved.

I've been working on an ability to create a little word game to help my grand kids learn. It's rather complicated to explain but either way, the need exists. I don't know stuff about 'coding or programming or whatever this is,' but I understand the importance of paying someone for the work to create this (database?) and am not looking for a handout.

Perhaps $100? I just don't know. Trying to be fair and responsible here. But also paying $2,400 a month for a one bathroom apartment in the SF bay, and as an unemployed retired pastor I can't just throw a bunch of money out there. I'm just trying... Thanks

Karl Sarpalius

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1077545#Comment_1077545

Trust me, I have been trying to google it but I think my terminology is hurting me in the process. I do, however, have one person that has responded and I'm trying to see what happens there.

As far as the MS Word, there's actually an online service that let's me copy and paste it in and counts the letters. Right now, I'm just slowly reading through and looking for verses with just a few letters (I'm trying to make little guessing puzzles with them.)

Rick

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1077549#Comment_1077549

In this post, I think, Rosie gives a couple of links that are close to what you are looking for. They are not from the ESV though. Maybe it is a start?

Rosie’s post: https://community.logos.com/forums/p/12196/95196.aspx#95196

Edit: After reading your requirements again, it only list the number of words in the verses.

GaoLu

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1077551#Comment_1077551

Maybe consider public domain text like KJV. Then a database version would be shareable.

Karl Sarpalius

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1077571#Comment_1077571

Got my heart set on ESV. The grandkids will get kinda hung up on understanding the KJV language.

I'm guessing I'll just have to keep reading through each book and slowly counting letters. I just figured with today's technology someone out there could make this happen. Thank everyone for trying. One last thing. As I continue to search for someone online to do this, is a "letter query" the proper terminology?

Thanks again. And if anyone knows someone who might be able to do this please let me know.

Karl Sarpalius

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1077571#Comment_1077571

Thanks for your help. I'm pretty set on the ESV. I'm guessing I'll just have to keep doing what I'm doing. There are plans to hopefully create this little game into a puzzle that can be passed down through generations. A puzzle that helps them learn. Thanks to all who tried to help and if anyone comes across someone who might be able to create such a query for a few bucks, please let me know. In my efforts to find someone online to do this I'm a little ignorant of the proper terminology. Is a "letter query" the proper phrase? Thanks again.

Bradley Grainger (Logos)

Here's a list of all the verses of the ESV, ordered by how many letters (A-Z) they contain.

2705.verses.csv

DominicM

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1077920#Comment_1077920

Thx Bradley

Karl Sarpalius

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1077931#Comment_1077931

Bradley... Thank you so so much. Do you use Zelle? I'd like to pay you as soon as we hit the new year. This is so very very helpful to me.

Bradley Grainger (Logos)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1077968#Comment_1077968

No payment necessary.

(And I didn't do most of the work, anyway. We already have software libraries written over the years at Faithlife that (for example) enumerate the verses in a Bible, get the text of a verse, filter it to Bible text only, etc. The part I added was essentially just s/[^A-Za-z]//g -- strip out everything that's not an ASCII letter.)

Doc B

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1078018#Comment_1078018

For the stats geeks out there, here's a histogram of counts. 65 characters occurs in 377 verses, the mode of the distribution.

(The mean character count is 149.2 and the median is 147.5, both greatly influenced by positive outliers).

[8-|]

DMB

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1078136#Comment_1078136

Not a geek, but isn't that the distribution you'd expect, given verses are not sentences? Just reminded from a Logos resource on the ability of greek writers to clause their sentences to death (eg Eph 1, Col 1)!

Doc B

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1078144#Comment_1078144

isn't that the distribution you'd expect

Absolutely.

And given the older majiscule manuscripts have no punctuation, it might be hard to even define what a sentence is in those texts. :-)

Karl Sarpalius

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1077920#Comment_1077920

Ok, my friend, I want to thank you for answering my post 3 years ago. I'm still plugging away at this project and have been feeling that I'm foolish if I don't ask you another coupla questions:

1. Do you happen to have this same kind of 'letter count' for the NAS or NKJV?

As I have been working on these puzzles (which require the exact same number of letters on each six sided piece) I sometimes can't get a verse that fits the context of the other sides of the puzzle that also has the same number of letters. However, perhaps a different translation will fit the ticket. I'm now about 5 years into this project and may never get it off the ground, but I want to continue trying. So... if you have access to this same letter-count-per-verse in the NAS and/or NKJV is it possible to receive it from you?

2. This is way out there but again I'd hate to find out this is possible but I was too scared to ask. I have been going to the excel file you sent me three years ago, finding the scripture reference, then going into Logos to look it up, and then deciding if it can be used for my project. I don't know the terminology but is it possible for me to be able to 'roll over' the reference in that excel spreadsheet and read that actual verse?

It's taking me nearly 4 days to complete one of these puzzles but I'm slowly getting it down and I'm so very thankful for your help with this. Very thankful. Would love to make one for you. I'm not positive, but I don't think there's another person anywhere doing this. Thanks again for your help. I so wish I was younger and had more time and funds to make this happen. I think it would be so good for retreats, small groups, SS classes, even when having friends over for dinner. But the clock is ticking on my age and health and so...

Thanks again.

Karl Sarpalius

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1077538#Comment_1077538

Hey Fred. Just saw this post of yours that you made 3 years ago. Yikes!

Anyway, I see that you asked why I would want such information about 'actual number of letters in a verse.'

I'm slowly creating a puzzle game that requires the exact same number of letters from six bible verse that fit the same context. When I first came up with this idea I thought I would call it, "So you think you know your Bible, huh?" But as I continued trying to create the idea I eventually paired down the title to, "JumbleVerse." Don't even have a website yet but did purchase the rights to the name.

Sorry for the late reply to your question.

Thar ya go.

Stand firm,

Karl

Dave Hooton

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1175661#Comment_1175661

Ok, my friend, I want to thank you for answering my post 3 years ago. I'm still plugging away at this project and have been feeling that I'm foolish if I don't ask you another coupla questions:

If Bradley does not answer, try creating a new thread in the General forum with the title like Attn. Bradley:Letter count in NAS, KJV and a link back to this thread i.e. https://community.logos.com/forums/t/186667.aspx

I don't know the terminology but is it possible for me to be able to 'roll over' the reference in that excel spreadsheet and read that actual verse?

It requires a hyperlink to be manually inserted e.g. =HYPERLINK("logosres:nasb95;ref=BibleNASB95.Mt25.31") where I use the L4 link from NASB95. This requires an extra column in Excel (I couldn't see how to embed it in the text for the verse), but the reference is opened in Logos.

Bradley Grainger (Logos)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1175661#Comment_1175661

Do you happen to have this same kind of 'letter count' for the NAS or NKJV?

I've re-run my program for NKJV and NASB95.

1325.nkjv-verses.csv

6204.nasb95-verses.csv